Brief Biography

I am currently an assistant professor in both the School of Environmental and Forest Science and Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. I received my PhD in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University, a masters in Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Connecticut College. I am coming to the University of Washington from the U.S. Geological Survey and Yale University where I was a postdoctoral associate involved in a national assessment of carbon sequestration potential within natural ecosystems. My focus is on freshwater environments.

I study the influence of humans and climate on carbon cycling at the intersection of terrestrial and aquatic systems. Through the use of satellite remote sensing, targeted field campaigns and watershed modeling, I quantify the capacity of natural ecosystems to change as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions; human landscape alteration, like logging or development; and the effects of climate change, in order to identify environmental stressors within watersheds and mitigate long term resource degradation. I received the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, The Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research Scholarship, The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Research Initiative Fellowship, and was invited as a Climate Change Scholar at the DISCCRS VII symposium in 2012.

My wife, Becca, and I happily convinced my two children, Oliver who is 8, and Sydney who is 5, to make the move from the east coast to the pacific north west. We are looking forward to good seafood, access to the ocean, big trees, long hikes, maybe some rain, and making new friends.